A mobile device operating in a coverage area of a cellular system may often hand off between cells in order to optimize performance of the device or of the overall system. In some cases, however, a device beyond the coverage area may not be able to communicate effectively with the cell or to hand off to another cell despite being located in perhaps relatively close proximity to the network coverage area. In other cases, devices may simply lose network coverage for any number of reasons, and may have trouble reconnecting.
A device in such situations may harm the overall system performance by interfering with signals transmitted from other devices in the coverage area. In particular, the device that is out of coverage may attempt to reconnect to the network by transmitting uplink signals repeatedly and unsuccessfully. Accordingly, there is a general need for methods and techniques that enable reconnection to the network.